Germany (Deutschland) is a Federal Republic consisting of sixteen states, known in German as Länder (singular Land). Since Land is the literal German word for "country", the term Bundesländer (federal states; singular Bundesland) is commonly used colloquially, as it is more specific, though technically incorrect within the corpus of German law.

The citizens of the states form the nation of Germany, and have the right of abode within the states. The area covered by the 16 states is completely and solely the territory of Germany. The governments of the states form part of the government of Germany.

The cities of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen are states in their own right, termed Stadtstaaten (city states). Due to its noncontiguous territory, Bremen is?in contrast to the other two?further subdivided into two districts. The remaining 13 states are termed Flächenländer (area states).

States

After the end of the Second World War, the states in the western part of the former German Reich were constituted as administrative areas first and subsequently federated into the Bund or Federal Republic of Germany. This is in contrast to post-war development in Austria, where the Bund was constituted first, and then the individual states were created as units of a federal system. In Austria, the states are also referred to as Länder in the Austrian constitution.

The use of the term Länder (countries) instead of Staaten (states) is in accordance with German political tradition, where the concept of Germany as an entity has always existed, either as a confederation or an alliance of several smaller independent kingdoms and duchies dating from the 9th century. Many of the current states have the same names and generally occupy the same areas as their namesakes, the former sovereign countries (for example Bavaria and Saxony which have along with Bremen nearly the same territory as in 1871). The singular term Staat however is in use for the Länder individually and their institutions in many cases.

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